L'eclat du Ciel Était Insoutenable

Fancy;
2002

Find it at:

Insomnia is a harsh mistress. It inevitably sides with your more
impulsive self, leaving logic at the door. Anyone who's ever gone or
a four-night study bender will understand. Something as perverse as
lining every inch of your room with mirrors may seem logical at the
time but, as the cast of the film Alive discovered, the
rationale can't always be justified in the face of social scrutiny.
However, after finding myself driving about Austin's seediest
neighborhoods at 4:00 a.m. blasting Snow's "Informer" at an ungodly
volume, even I had to admit that I had a problem.

Having been seduced by many of the myriad New Age philosophies
blurring the lines between genuine medical practice and
transcendentalist scam artistry, I made the decision to take leave of
long-time friend and personal physician Dr. Schreiber and seek the
clinical opinion of 'Hopie,' an authentic feng-shui master who
happened to dabble in alternative remedies. After listening intently
to the horrors of my descent into madness, he flipped through his
record collection. The artists I could discern from my wicker
topple-bowl across the foyer were completely alien to me. Nowhere ir
my travails had I encountered musicians with such exotic names as
Tanakh, Keiji Haino, or Tomas Jirku. Needless to say, names of such
foreign cadence were quite impressive while under the influence of
Hopie's slightly inebriating incense. When he finally prescribed a
two-week tenure with Hrsta's L'eclat du Ciel Était Insoutenable,
I felt the rare but refreshing surge of snobbery familiar only to the
musical 'elite.'

What ensued was much less exhilarating: my research on Hrsta revealed
that the project was merely a vehicle for Mike Moya, co-founder of
such post-rock luminaries as Godspeed You Black Emperor and another
personal addiction, Set Fire to Flames. I soon discovered, however,
that cred alone isn't enough to sustain a poorly conceived exploratior
of dissonance.

Although my insomnia was gone, it wasn't because Moya had painted a
gorgeous and inviting sonic tapestry capable of tempting my defiant
psyche into slumber. Nor were there any insurmountable walls of
terror with which to frighten myself into a state of coma. Rather, I
was subjected to distant orchestral 'scores' consisting largely of
single, undulating notes occasionally interrupted by sparse attempts
at cabaret numbers. Never mind that the more traditional songs to be
found throughout the album all boasted the same tempo, Moya's raspy
Jonathan Donahue-cum-Kim Gordon vocals, and lyrics that sounded as if
they were borne of some ill-fated collaboration between Rage Against
the Machine and Tristan Tzara. One can only stand the refrain, "The
bricks start to fall/ Like so many teeth," so many times before it
begins to lose its poetic pretense.

It's to Moya's credit that L'eclat du Ciel Était Insoutenable
is consistent in its cinematic creepiness despite its overbearing
length. Songs such as "Lime Kiln" break from the record's formulaic
instrumentation by incorporating such exotic sounds as a theremin (a
hallmark of any campy 50s sci-fi/nuclear fallout melodrama) succeed
in offering a unique take on Hrsta's post-apocalyptic lyrical
obsessions. But, in maintaining the ethereal and haunting mood of
the record, Moya often falls back on the same aural tricks, the most
notable being the liberally administered reverb which coats the
entire damn album, drowning out whatever subtle intricacies were to
be found in the songwriting.

With my insomnia all but vanished I have more time to deal with my newly
established disillusionment. As added insurance, I cut Hopie loose
and have returned to legally sponsored medical aid (all the while
praying that my insolence won't be rewarded with a painfully
unnecessary prostate exam). Though still a very disappointing
release, I've come to think of Hrsta as an anomaly: Moya exercising
his ability as a songwriter while hamfistedly tending to his
established 'sound.' Though I'd never refer to any aspect of Moya's
music as 'irreverent,' the man has never taken himself less seriously
then he does here.